Journal of Sacred Work

Days 251-255 Your Sacred Eyes

   If you want nature to look tidy there are few grander examples than golf courses. Yet, I'm struck by how many golfers can only see streams as "water hazards," trees as obstructions and longer grass as dreaded "rough" that may swallow their ball. As Mark Twain said, "Golf is a good walk spoiled."

   You can experience your job as a good career "spoiled." Or you can experience it as your highest destiny if you see with sacred eyes. 

   Jesus said "I have come to you that you may have life to the full." Is your life "full?"

Pink laced shoes   Burned out caregivers may see their patients as obstacles instead of opportunities, their supervisors as "hazards" instead of helpers and their paycheck as always too small instead of enough.

    To find your sacred eyes ask Love. Love will show you Beauty in a pair of shoes or in the hands of one of your patients. 

   Such seeing transforms your moments and thus can make an atomic change in your life. 

   "No one wants to remain a prisoner in an un-lived life," John O'Donohue averred. What if Mother Theresa or Martin Luther King had ignored their gift of sacred seeing?

   Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, a Nobel Prize winner, said that "Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen, and thinking what nobody has thought." Theresa saw suffering and worked to relieve it. King saw injustice and risked his life to remedy it. Philo T. Farnsworth saw a pattern in the tracks left by a farm plow and used that learning to invent television. 

   What do you "see?"

   Stephen David Rose offers the lovely insight that "…beauty interrupts restrictions in every place and thing." 

   What if you began seeing Beauty in everything and in everyone?

   Find your sacred eyes and you will find your destiny.

-Erie Chapman

Photo by Erie Chapman

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7 responses to “Days 251-255 Your Sacred Eyes”

  1. Bobbye Terry Avatar
    Bobbye Terry

    Beautiful post, Erie. I believe that some people miss the magnificence of the moment and the beauty found in the smallest and almost invisible places because they are too “busy.” We have become a “microwave society,” bent on immediate results and satisfaction. Many simply are frustrated in their not “living up” to the lofty and often unrealistic expectations of their employers and ladder-climbing friends. Yet, by slowing down, one often finds the answers he seeks and something even sweeter, the peace within his very soul.
    He told us, “Be still and know that I am God.”

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  2. Cheri Cancelliere Avatar
    Cheri Cancelliere

    When I consider the old saying, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” I am encouraged to be still, as Bobbye said, and ask for the gift of seeing through sacred eyes, the eyes of love where the most beautiful things are those that the world passes by. So small and simple and infinitely precious. My mother’s hands, a ladybug that lands on my sleeve, the breeze through the window, a child’s laughter, my neighbor’s dog “dancing” in circles with delight. My real “career” is also my vocation, to see everyday life through sacred eyes and recognize every interaction as an invitation to love.

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  3. ~liz Wessel Avatar
    ~liz Wessel

    I think we are all at risk of burnout from time to time. Especially if we do not see that our efforts are not bringing forth a positive outcome. As caregivers, we want to be of help but often we go about it in a way that enables rather than empowers another person or ourselves. It can be a fine line between when to step in to assist and when to back off and encourage. It is definitely an art. A good coach or mentor does not tell us the answers but knows how to ask the right questions. “Is your life full?” We come to live into our answers when a sacred space is held for us to companion the questions; the one’s that really matter (Rilke).
    I thank you for holding a space here on this Journal, to reflect and notice, as well as the encouraging inspiration you gift us with, Erie. The comments of both Cheri and Bobbye are uplifting too. It is in the little pauses that we cultivate receptivity for those moments of Beauty and awe that surprise and leave us in reverence for the one who gives us breath.

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  4. sbeng Avatar
    sbeng

    Erie: your post gives the readers food for thought. The question: “What do you see” and the other from the famous Nobel Prize Winner includes “seeing what others see and thinking what nobody has thought”. This Christmas song started to resonate in my being “Do you see what I see…. do you hear what I hear,do know what I know…”? There are key points in this song SEEING, HEARING, IDENTIFYING the problem/problems and finally taking ACTION. Love causes us to see the beauty in the individual whether lying in the hospital bed or in the comfort of their own home. The Home Health Team has a lot of opportunities to impart Radical Loving Care and thus continue to assist in the patient’s recovery in the home situations supporting the individual and their family/families or when Hospice care is needed. In daily life there are times it is hard to see beauty in difficult situations and it takes patience but nevertheless Nature reminds us that there is Beauty everywhere and it is in the eyes of the Beholder. Quotes from the song “do you know what I know, a child…. a child shivering in the cold…let us bring him silver and gold… let us pray…He will bring us goodness and light”. May the Lord continue to strengthen all the caregivers as they patiently provide comfort and care to the sick and the suffering.

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  5. ~liz Wessel Avatar
    ~liz Wessel

    I loved reading your post, Suan as the Beauty of your meaning and that song came to life in me.

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  6. ~liz Wessel Avatar
    ~liz Wessel

    May you have respect for your own individuality and difference.
    May you realize that the shape of your soul is unique,
    that you have a special destiny here,
    That behind the facade of your life
    there is something beautiful, good, and eternal happening.
    May you learn to see yourself with the same delight, pride,
    and expectation with which God sees you in every moment.
    -John O’Donohue

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  7. sbeng Avatar
    sbeng

    This is an addendum to the post written the content of which includes the Christmas song “Do you see what I see and do you hear what I hear” This song was written by Noel Regney and music by Gloria S Baker. The pair were married at that time and wrote it as a plea for peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The song was released shortly after Thanksgiving in 1962. It was recorded by the Harry Simone Chorale a group which had also popularized “The Little Drummer Boy”. B. Crosby made the song a hit when he recorded in his version of it on October 1962.

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